VirtualBox shared folders - /media missing & problem with overwriting files

English Virtualization
1

It looks like auto-mounting shared folders in an OpenSUSE 13.2 guest with GNOME is not working, although the VirtualBox guest additions are installed - the default install does not create the /media folder and the vboxsf group is missing.

I did the steps described below to get it running, but my questions are: Is this the way to go or is there a better way to solve the problem? Are there any issues with the described approach (e.g. when updating the guest) that I need to be aware of?

The steps I followed:

  1. I uninstalled the VirtualBox guest additions installed by default.
  2. I installed kernel-syms, kernel-source, make and gcc.
  3. I created a folder /media with read, write and execute rights for everybody.
  4. In the VirtualBox menu of the VM I chose Devices > Insert guest additions CD image
  5. I installed the guest additions.
  6. I added the vboxsf group to the user who should be allowed to use the shared folder.

Btw, it looks like overriding an existing file via drag&drop in Nautilus is not working (“Error renaming temporary file: Text file busy”). Gedit and Geany also have this problem when saving changes to a file. Looks to me like this 4 year old bug https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/9203 is still lurking around. Even though I found in the meantime software that can work with shared folders (LibreOffice, GNOME Commander as alternative to Nautilus, Beaver as alternative to Gedit), my question is: Can folders shared through VirtualBox be used in a productive environment under GNOME or do I have to expect more incompatibilities? And what other apps are known to be affected by this problem?

2

Have you searched this forum and read these 2 threads (The first is more important but the second can help understanding)?
https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/502552-Cannot-enable-Virtualbox-shared-folder?highlight=shared
https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/502328-13-2-Virtualbox-guest-and-shared-folders-in-media/page2?highlight=shared

TSU

3

Yes, that’s how I got it at least somehow working, but it still is a workaround. That’s why I asked if this is really the only solution to solve the problem and what the consequences are.

With regards to the overwriting problem, I couldn’t find any solution in the forum - replacing the applications, is very unsatisfactory >:(.

4

Sorry I don’t run Gnome on any of my systems, if the bug is the same as what you found I’d agree with “monsieurrigsby” it’s more likely something Gnome should fix since the rest of the world isn’t experiencing same. Although this possibly would qualify as “one of the thousands of open VBox bugs” I wouldn’t lean towards this being something VBox should address.

In the meantime, I’d recommend 2 possible options…

  • openSUSE is a somewhat unique distro in that you can install apps from Desktops other than your native Desktop. Install Dolphin and Kwrite, the main penalty would be the disk space used to install the required KDE dependencies, but it should work fine.
  • Personally, I use the GUI apps mainly for browsing and viewing files “from 30,000 feet.” I generally perform my file operations using the command line. You might find this works at least as fast as DragNDrop and efficiently.

If you want to research and work on your problem further, it’s probably possible to fix the problem but you’d have to determine the actual cause, eg Can this be solved by modifying permissions? Or, is this something that is common to how those specific Gnome apps were designed and compiled?

IMO,
TSU